bomarc;
so far no real answers.
. . .
I've seen excellent pilots, with more than 10,000 hours, some with 20,000 hours not bring throttles back in regular, non fly by wire airplanes.
. . .
Sometimes their hands were both on the control wheel in a very difficult x wind situation...and they asked for help with the throttles. Sometimes not.
Yes, it is interesting that there are no responses...
I think there are no "real" answers because the point you raise has yet to be acknowledged as a real possibility.
I've seen these very same occurrences, (and a host of other equally "illogical" responses), from very experienced pilots, (on Douglas/McDonnell-Douglas, Boeing, Lockheed and Airbus designs).
This is not a Boeing or Airbus issue. Flying the autothrust design of either type is a non-event providing both are flown and handled as designed and as-trained. PBL's treatment of this subject is a reference discussion in itself.
I think that plumbing the deeper subtleties and minutae of design differences in order to find cause in the design and man-machine interface may be trying too hard and missing other, (and perhaps for some), more disturbing causes. Many posts including those from professional aircrews with long experience have already acknowledged that regardless of design and despite behaviours based upon CRM and error-trapping principles, error can and does occur.
Whether there is a training and documentation issue is a matter for the investigation to resolve, as will be resolved the matters of fatigue, weather factors, performance issues (where this thread began), airport and ATC issues etc.
This accident may however, come down to what you have said in your post, bomarc. Although the dialogue regarding design differences and human factors is interesting and educational, I believe in this case, "why" will not be an easy question for us to answer because there are some cases where logic, design and even rationality may not assist in fully understanding what happened. Perhaps the cause is quite simple.